GltEECE AND HOME. 327 



Car. I understand ! ah ! now I have you, young gentleman ! That will 

 do for him ; call me a novice, if I have not my youth in safe keeping 

 within these two days, and shipped to India by the next transport. 



Clav. No, Carlos, the affair is different to what you think it. 



Car. How? 



Clav. I hope through his mediation, and my own earnest endeavours, 

 to obtain pardon from the unhappy girl. 



Car. Clavigo ! 



Clav. I hope to blot out the past, to restore lost tranquillity, and thus 

 again become an honourable man in my own and the world's esteem. 



Car. The devil ! are you struck childish ? It is easy to see you are a 

 scholar. To suffer yourself to be so cajoled ! Do you not perceive that 

 this is a plot designed to entrap you ? 



Clav. No, Carlos, he will riot hear of marriage. They will not listen to 

 any proposal. 



Car. That's the right pitch. Now, my dear friend, do not be angry, but I 

 have seen them in comedies cozen a country younker to just the same 

 tune. 



Clav. You wrong me I beg you will spare your wit about my marry- 

 ing, for I am resolved to marry Maria voluntarily and from pure inclina- 

 tion. All my hopes, all my happiness, rest on the thought of obtaining 

 Maria's forgiveness, and then away with pride ! On the bosom of my 

 love there still dwells a heaven as before. All the fame I acquire, all the 

 greatness to which I may be elevated, will yield me a double gratification, 

 a twofold exaltation, for Maria will share them with me. Farewell ! I 

 must away ! I must now have some talk with Guilbert. 



Car. Stay only till after dinner. 



Clav. Not one moment. (Exit.} 



Car. (Looking after Clavigo for some time in silence.} Every man plays 

 the fool once in his lifetime. (Exit.) 



END OF ACT II. 



(To be continued.) 



GREECE AND ROME, 



A BRIEF COMPARISON OF THE INFLUENCE OF GREECE AND ROME ON 



CIVILIZATION, 



IT will at first sight seem to most persons a paradoxical assertion, 

 that civilization is more indebted to the Romans than to the Greeks 

 but on considering the matter more minutely, we shall find that a 

 part at least of the apparent paradox arises from a confusion of ideas 

 which exists in our own minds with respect to the causes and tokens 

 of the progress of civilization. We are dazzled by the splendid 

 genitts of the poets, orators, and philosophers of Athens, and allow 

 our admiration for them to lead us into the assumption that the in- 

 fluence of Greece and Rome on the progressive improvement of the 

 human race must have been proportionate to the merits of their lite- 

 rature. We forget that literature is the evidence, and not the cause 

 of civilization ; that the weight of that evidence does not depend so 



